Amsterdam Vallon

Amsterdam Vallon (1834-) was an Irish-American criminal from the Five Points slum of New York City who, from 1862 to 1863, resurrected the Irish Catholic "Dead Rabbits" gang which his late father Priest Vallon had once led, leading them to a final victory over William Cutting's Protestant Natives gang.

Early life
Amsterdam Vallon was born in the Five Points slum of Manhattan, New York City, New York in 1834, the son of Irish immigrant parents from County Kerry. His mother died when he was young, and his father Priest Vallon, the leader of the Dead Rabbits gang, was killed before his son's eyes during the 1846 Battle of the Five Points against William Cutting's Protestant Natives gang. His father entrusted him with his St. Michael pendant before heading off to battle, and, as his father lay dying in the snowy Paradise Square, he urged Amsterdam to "never look away" and to remember him. Cutting, who hated the Irish yet respected Priest, ordered that Priest's body be left untouched. He then left Priest's knife in his hands so that he could use it in the afterlife, and he ordered Amsterdam to be handed over to the law and given a proper education. However, Amsterdam stole the knife, warded off the Natives gangsters, and fled into the Old Brewery, where fellow Irish boy Johnny Sirocco helped him evade the gangsters and brought him into the vast cellars, where Vallon buried his father's possessions. He was then taken to the Hellgate House of Reform orphanage on Blackwell's Island, where he was raised by Reverend Francis Nickle and other Protestant moral reformers.

Return to the Five Points
In September 1862, Vallon, now a grown man, left the orphanage with his few belongings, and he threw away the Bible which Nickle had given him and instead decided to return to the Five Points. He stopped in the Old Brewery, whose residents were being evicted by Reverend Alexander Raleigh, and he retrieved his father's knife and his St. Michael pendant. He was ambushed by Jimmy Spoils and Johnny Sirocco (neither recognizing the other), but he managed to beat down both of them and leave with his father's possessions.

Johnny caught up to Vallon as he walked through Paradise Square, and he revealed to Vallon that he recognized him as "the Priest's son"; Vallon then remembered Sirocco as the boy who had helped him back in 1846. Vallon quickly befriended Sirocco, who gave him a tour of the new Five Points and told him about the various gangs which roamed the streets, although he informed him that the Dead Rabbits had died with his father and that their name was not to be spoken anymore. That night, Sirocco took Vallon to the scene of a fire, where they took advantage of the brawl between William M. Tweed and Peter Masterson's rival fire companies to rush into the burning building and loot a few items. Sirocco then took Vallon to his fence, Stephen Shang, where he gave up his loot so that it could be sold and the earnings divided. When Shang called him "Hellgate" and mocked Vallon, Vallon insulted him back, and they almost fought each other before a policeman walked in. Vallon recognized him as former Dead Rabbit "Happy Jack Mulraney", and he was forced to give a part of his loot to Mulraney as a bribe.

Working for Cutting
The next day, Sirocco took Vallon to meet William Cutting at Sparrow's Chinese Pagoda on Mott Street, where they would pay tribute to Cutting out of their stolen loot. Cutting tipped off Sirocco about a Portuguese ship which would be under quarantine in New York Harbor for three weeks, and he sent him to steal its shipment that night. He then called Vallon over, asking for his name, and, impressed at his nickname of "Amsterdam", Cutting joked by saying, "I'm New York". He then told him to never show up without a tribute payment again, and he told him to accompany Sirocco on the ship heist. Along with Jimmy Spoils, they killed the captain Linus Hair and sold his body to a local mortician, causing a stir in the newspapers. When he returned to Cutting with the money, Cutting congratulated him on making The Police Gazette with his theft. However, Cutting's minion Gary McGloin, another former Dead Rabbit, insulted Vallon and Sirocco as a couple of fidlam bens (Irish thieves without morals). While Cutting tried to defuse the situation by saying that they were Irishmen like McGloin but without the religious scruples, Vallon escalated by asking if McGloin meant to call him a "chiseler". When McGloin asked what it would mean if he called him such, Vallon said that they then had business, and they engaged in a fistfight which several other customers at Cutting's butcher shop placed bets on. Vallon beat McGloin down, earning Cutting's favor.